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She’s been passionate about them since she was a child, but the Queen has quit breeding corgis after more than 70 years.
The 89-year-old monarch has owned more than 30 Pembrokeshire Welsh Corgis over the years, but told her animal advisor Monty Roberts she didn’t want any more in 2012 because she didn’t want any left to grieve for her when she dies.
“She didn’t want to have any more young dogs,” Roberts told Vanity Fair. “She didn’t want to leave any young dog behind. She wanted to put an end to it.”
Her Majesty now has just two of her beloved corgis left – Holly and Willow – both of whom are 12 and unlikely to live much longer.
The Queen with her corgis in 1969.
Princess Elizabeth got her first corgi in 1933, when her father King George VI brought home a pup called Dookie. She started breeding them a few years later and all her dogs are descended from Susan, the dog she was given on her 18th birthday.
To this day, the monarch is believed to feed and walk her dogs herself and is extremely particular about their diet, as royal biographer Brian Hoey revealed in his book Pets by Royal Appointment.
There is no canned food in sight – the corgis dine on fillet steak and chicken breast specially prepared by a Buckingham Palace chef.
At 5pm sharp, a footman delivers the meals to the Queen, who adds the finishing touches herself, pouring gravy over the steak or chicken.
Hoey says the corgis are so pampered the Queen even hires a homeopath to treat them whenever they are ill.
When at Buckingham Palace, the dogs sleep in raised wicker baskets in a room near the royal apartments, where they roam freely.
But Hoey claims Prince Philip “loathes” all the Queen’s dogs – including her two dachshund-corgi crosses – “because they yap too much”.
